6th Annual RC SELPA Mental Health Symposium: Mental Health Matters

Dr. David Diehl is the Child Welfare and Attendance Program Administrator for the Sanger Unified School District. While a Director of Community Services in a small rural district facing significant challenges, the Selma Unified School District took bold steps to address one of education’s most pressing issues—chronic absenteeism. His district launched a district-wide, data-driven initiative that resulted in a remarkable 31% drop in chronic absenteeism across its elementary schools in just 1.5 years. This powerful session will explore the district’s tiered framework, developed under the leadership of Dr. David Diehl, that uses predictive data, early warning signs, and wraparound support to transform student attendance and lives. Learn how attendance teams, comprised of social workers and newly hired Community Liaisons, analyzed data to identify attendance barriers and engage families early in the school year. Discover how this model goes beyond the numbers, integrating behavioral data, literacy indicators, and school-avoidance patterns to support the whole child. Dr. Diehl will also share the research and lived experiences that shaped this approach, including insights from five major longitudinal studies and his own work with justice-involved youth. With deep personal investment stemming from his time teaching in a court school, where he tragically lost 21 students to gang violence. Dr. Diehl offers not just a framework, but a call to action. Join this session to gain a replicable blueprint for reducing absenteeism, increasing student connectedness, and preventing future dropout and delinquency—starting before 6th grade. Whether you're an administrator, counselor, or community partner, you’ll leave inspired and equipped to lead meaningful change in your own district.

This presentation examines how LEUSD ERMHS and mental health teams collaborate to provide early, inclusive supports that build resilience before challenges escalate to formal assessment. Designed for classroom and systems leaders, this session shares lessons learned, challenges encountered, and adjustments made to strengthen intervention, bridge gaps, and reduce behavior-driven IEP identification while maintaining access, regulation, and learning for all students.

Participants will leave with a shared understanding of how integrated mental health systems can support students in general education settings, regardless of designation. Attendees will gain practical insight into early, resilience-focused interventions, cross-department collaboration, and systems-level decision-making that strengthen access, reduce behavior-driven special education identification, and promote sustainable supports for all students.

This session will focus on providing data driven and legally compliant decisions when working with students with mental health issues in schools.  We will focus on connecting the dots between the student's functioning levels and needs, to develop appropriate goals, that will then drive the supplementary aids, supports and services.

Participants will have a better understanding of the law as it pertains to address mental health needs in school, and better outcomes for students.

This training equips educators to respond to problem behavior with confidence—without relying on punitive measures. Grounded in ABA, participants learn to catch students doing the right thing, teach coping and replacement skills, and build reinforcement-rich environments. By viewing behavior deficits as teachable skills, this therapeutic (though not talk-based) approach strengthens regulation, resilience, and student mental health.

Participants will:

• Feel better equipped to respond to problem behavior in the classroom
• Be less reliant on corrective and punitive measures to handle problem behavior
• Understand how positive reinforcement and teaching coping skills and replacement behaviors promote better mental health

Move beyond compliance-based behavioral models toward a neuro-affirming, trauma-informed co-regulation practice. Grounded in Dr. Palmer’s TEDx Talk, this session introduces the C.A.L.M. framework—a physiological intervention for high-intensity environments. Participants will learn to prioritize nervous system safety over behavioral control, gaining practical tools to stabilize dysregulated students while maintaining their own clinical and emotional equilibrium.

Participants will master the C.A.L.M. protocol to bridge the gap between "crisis management" and "whole-child wellness." The outcome is for ERMHS providers and educators to:

1. Identify the Neuro-Biological Shift: Recognize the transition from the "Social Engagement System" to "Survival Mode" before a behavioral outburst occurs.
2. Apply Neuro-Affirming Co-Regulation: Implement the C.A.L.M. steps to de-escalate without power struggles, honoring the student’s physiological needs.
3. Practice Self-Stabilization: Utilize "Thermostat" strategies to remain the regulated anchor in a dysregulated environment, reducing staff burnout and secondary trauma.

Romoland School District’s Director of Special Education and BCBA share their journey of establishing a robust Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS). This session explores practical frameworks for meeting diverse behavioral needs, highlighting the collaborative strategies used to build a sustainable, district-wide infrastructure that fosters student success across all tiers.

Participants will leave with a scalable roadmap for integrating BCBA expertise into district-wide MTSS frameworks. Attendees will gain specific strategies for aligning behavioral interventions across tiers, establishing data-driven referral processes, and fostering the administrative-specialist collaboration necessary to sustain a proactive, inclusive school culture.